George Cukor: Hollywood Master

Murray Pomerance; R. Barton Palmer

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2015

George Cukor

Hollywood Master

Murray Pomerance and R. Barton Palmer

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748693573

Overview
Contents

About this book

A critical analysis of the films and career of George Cukor

One of the studio era’s most famous and admired directors, George Cukor made some of American cinema’s most beloved classics, including The Women, Gaslight, Adam’s Rib, A Star is Born, and My Fair Lady. Not himself a scriptwriter, he was particularly adept at choosing which properties to adapt and then managing the adaptation process with verve and skill. But what makes for a good adapter, for a talented master of ceremonies who knows where to put everything and everybody, including the camera? Who knows how to make a property his own even while enhancing the value it has as belonging to someone else? The essays in this volume, all written by prominent experts in their field, provide a series of complementary answers to those questions.

Although responsible for many of the films that came to define an era, Cukor himself has received surprisingly little critical attention. With a theatrical style successfully transferred from his Broadway career, Cukor was still a man of the cinema, fascinated by the ever-developing potentials of his adopted medium, as shown by the more than fifty films he directed in a career that endured from the early sound era into the 1970s.

Offering a critical discussion of every feature film Cukor directed, and including a rich trove of valuable information about their production histories, this is the first critical anthology devoted to one of the most celebrated figures from American cinema’s golden age.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
List of Figures Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Contributors Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction R. Barton Palmer and Murray Pomerance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 Cukor’s Tragicomedies of Marriage: Dinner at Eight, No More Ladies, The Women, and The Marrying Kind Maureen Turim Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
2 George Cukor’s Late Style: Justine, Travels With My Aunt, and Rich and Famous James Morrison Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	28
3 Libel, Scandal, and Bad Big Names: It Should Happen to You, Les Girls, Camille, and Romeo and Juliet Dominic Lennard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	43
4 The Cukor “Problem”: David Copperfield, Holiday, and The Philadelphia Story Robert B. Ray Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	60
5 Modulations of the Shot: The Quiet Film Style of George Cukor in What Price Hollywood?, Born Yesterday, Sylvia Scarlett, and My Fair Lady Lee Carruthers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
6 Doubling in the Cinema of George Cukor: The Royal Family of Broadway, A Bill of Divorcement, A Double Life, and Bhowani Junction Michael DeAngelis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	92
7 George Cukor and the Case of an Actor’s Director: Hepburn and/or Tracy in Little Women, The Actress, Keeper of the Flame, Adam’s Rib, and Pat and Mike Charlie Keil Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	107
8 Cukor Maudit: Tarnished Lady, Girls About Town, Our Betters, Susan and God, Desire Me, Edward, My Son, The Model and the Marriage Broker, Let’s Make Love, and The Chapman Report Bill Krohn Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	124
9 George Cukor’s Theatrical Feminism: Gaslight, Heller in Pink Tights, A Life of Her Own, and A Star is Born Linda Ruth Williams Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
10 The Furthest Side of Paradise: Two-Faced Woman, A Woman’s Face, Hot Spell, Wild is the Wind, and Winged Victory R. Barton Palmer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	156
Works Cited and Consulted Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 200
Illustrations
- Other: 35 B/W illustrations
Keywords: Film, Media & Cultural Studies

eBook

Published: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 9780748693573